Four-year ban for veteran jockey signals end to career
Veteran jockey Dean McKeown’s career looks to be over after he was handed a 4-year ban by the British Horse Racing Authority (BHA) for corruption in racing.
The jockey, whose first win was in 1977, will be 52 by the end of his ban and has said he is unlikely to return to race-riding.
He was found guilty of conspiring with other people to commit a corrupt or fraudulent practice as well as intentionally failing to allow four horses to run on their merits.
Trainer Paul Blockley has been disqualified for two and half years, being found guilty of conspiracy and failing to give Mr McKeown necessary instructions.
And owner Clive Whiting was banned for 8 years for conspiracy and misleading BHA investigators.
The BHA disciplinary panel stated that “McKeown’s relationship with Clive Whiting was much closer than the normal professional relationship of a jockey with an owner for whom he rode regularly. They were friends and had business dealings. McKeown became in effect Clive Whiting’s racing adviser.”
Blockley accepted that he passed information, both positive and negative, about horses in his yard to Clive Whiting and Vinnie Whiting as well as to Wright.
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
This information was much more than just opinions based on public information, such as form.
In evidence he said: “I reach my opinions on how they gallop and how they talk to me. I know a horse’s eye, how it’s eating up. I read the horses.”
Owners Derek Lovatt and Martyn Wakefield, former owners David Wright and Marcus Reeder and unlicensed individuals Nicholas Rook, and Vincent Whiting have also been found guilty of corruption.
David Wright is disqualified for 6 years and Marcus Reeder and Martyn Wakefield for 18 months.
Vinnie Whiting will be excluded from all premises licensed by the BHA for 4 years and Nicholas Rook will be excluded for 6 years.
Derek Lovatt has been fined £20,000.
Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now
A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.